Through improvisation, simple scripted scenes, performance projects, and/or practical application, students learn to identify what makes performances believable and explore the tools used to create, articulate, and execute them. Upon completion of this course, students have a strong foundation for future scene work, script analysis, and play production. Public performances may serve as a culmination of specific instructional goals. Students may be required to attend and/or participate in rehears

Students examine the various dimensions of characters through analysis, discussion, and classroom performance, working with scripts from a variety of time periods and cultures. They learn to break down a scene from a character’s point of view, and also learn to sustain a character and build the relationship between actor and audience. Public performances may serve as a culmination of specific instructional goals. Students may be required to attend and/or participate in rehearsals and performance

Students focus on development of significant acting skills and knowledge of the actor’s literature, compiling a working actor’s portfolio for exhibition and/or the interview process. They research potential job opportunities in the film, television, game animation, and theatre industries, as well as scholarships and opportunities available at the university level. An inquiry-based capstone project may be required. Public performances may serve as a culmination of specific instructional goals. St

Students create characters for theatrical and film/video productions through scene, character, and technical analysis. Through improvisation, script writing, and aesthetic creation and collaboration, actors refine their working knowledge and independent thought, articulating and justifying their creative choices. Students’ “critical eye” becomes more developed and significant mastery of artistic choices becomes evident. An inquiry-based capstone project may be required. Public performances may s

The AP Art and Design course framework is composed of course skills, big ideas, essential questions and enduring understandings, learning objectives, and essential knowledge. AP Art and Design skill categories delineate overarching understandings central to the study and practice of art and design. Each of the three skill categories consists of skills that encompass foundational to advanced learning over the span of the course. Students need to develop, practice, and apply these skills in a vari

The AP Art and Design course framework is composed of course skills, big ideas, essential questions and enduring understandings, learning objectives, and essential knowledge. AP Art and Design skill categories delineate overarching understandings central to the study and practice of art and design. Each of the three skill categories consists of skills that encompass foundational to advanced learning over the span of the course. Students need to develop, practice, and apply these skills in a vari

The AP Art History course welcomes students into the global art world to engage with its forms and content as they research, discuss, read, and write about art, artists, art making, and responses to and interpretations of art. By investigating specific course content of 250 works of art characterized by diverse artistic traditions from prehistory to the present, the students develop in-depth, holistic understanding of the history of art from a global perspective. Students learn and apply skills

AP Calculus AB is a course designed to offer students college level mathematics under the guidelines of the Advanced Placement Program. Topics shall include, but not limited to, elementary functions, hyperbolic functions, limits and continuity, derivatives, differentiation including partial differentiation, applications of the derivative, anti-derivatives, definite integrals, indeterminate forms, and applications of the integral. The student enrolled in this course will be expected to take the A

Advanced Placement Calculus BC is a course designed to offer students college level mathematics under the guidance of the Advanced Placement Program. Topics shall include, but not be limited to, elementary functions, hyperbolic functions, limits and continuity, derivatives, differentiation including partial differentiation, applications of the derivatives, anti-derivatives, definite integrals, indeterminate forms, applications of the integral and sequences of real numbers, convergence, and eleme

AP Research, the second course in the AP Capstone™ experience, allows students to deeply explore an academic topic, problem, issue, or idea of individual interest. Students design, plan, and implement a yearlong investigation to address a research question. Through this inquiry, they further the skills they acquired in the AP Seminar course by learning research methodology, employing ethical research practices, and accessing, analyzing, and synthesizing information. Students reflect on their ski

AP Seminar is a foundational course that engages students in cross-curricular conversations that explore the complexities of academic and real-world topics and issues by analyzing divergent perspectives. Students learn to investigate a problem or issue, analyze arguments, compare different perspectives, synthesize information from multiple sources, and work alone and in a group to communicate their ideas.

Part of the Visual and Performing Arts department at Paul R. Smith Middle School.